Let's open this morning's service
with number 199 from the hardback timbrel, number 199. Let's all
stand together. 199. so sinners Jesus will receive. Sound this word of grace to all
who the heavenly pathway lead. All who linger, all who fall,
sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ receive his sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Come and He will give you rest. Trust Him for His word is plain. He will take the sinful last. Christ, receive a sinful man. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. ? How my heart condemns me not
? ? Pure before the law I stand ? ? He who cleansed me from all
spot ? ? Satisfied its last demand ? ? Sing it more and more again
? ? Christ receive his sinful man ? Make the message clear
and plain. Christ receives sinners. Christ receiveth sinful man,
even me with all my sin. Purged from every spot and stain,
heaven with him I enter in, sinning it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful man, Please be seated. That's the good news of the gospel.
The Lord receives only sinful men. and receives every sinful
man. Good morning. We're going to
be looking at the first three verses in Judges chapter 16 this
morning, the first hour. And then we have a special treat.
Angus Fisher is here with us from Australia, and he'll be
bringing the message before we observe the Lord's table from
John chapter six. And then Angus will be here again
Wednesday night to preach for us. So it's been a blessing to
spend a couple of days with him. And Daisy's leaving this evening
to go back to Australia. So it's been good to have her
here this summer. or you get a safe trip home. We FaceTimed with the church
in Nauru, Angus' church, last night. They were getting ready
for services this morning, and it was just a blessing to be
able to fellowship with God's people from wherever we are now. Let's bow together and ask the
Lord's blessings. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
We take great hope and comfort in knowing that the Lord Jesus
Christ came into the world to save sinners. Lord, we thank
you for the work of grace that you do by your spirit, causing
us to come before thee for mercy as sinners. Thank you for stripping
us of our righteousness and causing us to bow in faith and trust
Christ for all our righteousness before thee. We thank you for
the promise that you've made to meet when we come together
with us and to manifest your grace and your glory in our hearts
by your spirit. Lord, we Thank you for your mercy
and your faithfulness and your goodness. Lord, we look forward
to what you would show us this morning
from your word. And we long, Lord, for those
times of faith and grace that we receive from your hand. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I've titled this message Saved
in Gaza. Saved in Gaza. What a precious
word saved is to the ears of a sinner. And what great hope
we have in knowing that when the Lord saves, he saves to the
uttermost. He saved us in the covenant of
grace before time ever began. when the Lord Jesus Christ became
our surety and entered into a covenant promise as the lamb slain before
the foundation of the world, we were saved. We were saved
when the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life for his people
on Calvary's cross and shed his precious blood as a covering
for our sins. We are saved when we first hear
the gospel. as the good news for sinners. God makes us to be a sinner and
causes us to realize that we have no righteousness whatsoever,
then gives us faith to look to Christ and what great hope we
have in that day of salvation. The Lord continues to save us.
Believers don't talk about their salvation as if it was just a
one-time past experience. And that's what I want us to
see this morning in this passage in Judges chapter 16. that believers
are continually coming to Christ to be saved, to be saved from
themselves, to be saved from their sins, to be saved from
this world and Satan and all the things that would draw us
away from Christ. We're in need of continual daily
bread to feed our souls and to be saved. We long for that day. when we shall be saved in the
fullness of our salvation, when we see him in the purity and
perfection of all that he is and be made like him without
sin, that day will be the end of our salvation, the fulfillment
of our salvation. Romans chapter five, verse 10
says, for if when we were enemies. We come into this world at enmity
with God. The father said to his son, he
said, sit down here at my right hand until I make all thine enemies
thy footstool. And in salvation, the Lord makes
those who are by nature at enmity with him to sit like Mary at
his feet and to choose that one thing needful and to hear the
word of salvation and grace from him. And so the Lord, Paul writes
in Romans chapter five, verse 10, for if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, the death
of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the shed blood of Christ, the covering
for all the sins of all of God's people. the Lord Jesus Christ
went to Calvary's cross he bore in his body all the sins of all
of God's elect and he put them away once and for all by the
sacrifice of himself and if we were reconciled to God by the
death of his son you see even though we are By nature at enmity
with God, even before the Lord is pleased to call us out of
darkness into his marvelous light, the scripture says that we were
reconciled to God through the death of his son. And so when
God observed, when he saw the travail of his son's soul and
was satisfied, he was satisfied and justified all those for whom
Christ died. And if we were reconciled to
God by the death of his son, how much more shall we be saved
by his life? Now, that's not a reference to
his ministerial life here during those 33 years. It's a reference
to his life in us. By his spirit, he lives in us
and we're reconciled to God by his death and we continue to
be saved by his life. By the living Lord and living
word, he continues to save us. This matter of being saved is
a continual concern and need for the believer. And so in our
text, we see a picture of that. Our position before God in Christ
is without sin, no question about it. As he is, so are we in this
world. We have perfect righteousness
in Christ. We have acceptance in Christ.
We have holiness in Christ. Satisfaction in Christ. Substitution
in Christ. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
ascended back into glory, he took with him those for whom
he lived and died. And the scripture says that we
are now in the heavenlies in Christ. Perfect before God in
the person of our substitute That's our hope That's our joy. That's our salvation But that's
not our experience is it Our experience is a lot far from
being perfect in it We live in this world and Scripture says
that we are in the world, but not to be of the world. And yet
so often we feel how much of the world we are. We're being
drawn and distracted away from Christ. We have the sin of our
own flesh. We have the temptations and tried
that of Satan. We have this this world, which
is in complete opposition to God. against us and drawing us away
from him. The old man continues, as the
children of Israel did, to be attracted by the leeks and the
garlics and the melons of Egypt. Remember the children of Israel?
When they were forced to eat that manna day in and day out,
they said, we loathe this life bread. Let us go back to Egypt
and feast on those things that come from the ground. What a
spiritual picture it is. Every time we look away from
Christ, we are showing our dissatisfaction in him. And every time we long
for the things of this world, we are longing for the leeks
and the garlics and the melons of the earth of this world. And
yet, when the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt,
he never let them go back. And he won't let us go back.
will not let you go back to Egypt. With all the trials and temptations
of the flesh, cannot go back to Egypt. And yet there is a
land between Israel and Egypt. It's called Gaza. And it's still the same land
of conflict today as it was in the day of Samson. The word Gaza
means strong. And there's a strong conflict
right now between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the land
of Gaza. It's a strip of land that exists
between Egypt and Israel. And how oftentimes the people
of God find themselves in Gaza, struggling with the things of
this world. And we have a picture here. in our text of the Lord
Jesus Christ coming to Gaza and tearing down the gates of Gaza
and bringing out of Gaza his people and returning them to
their promised land. It is a spiritual warfare that
we experience in this world. The flesh warring against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that we cannot be
what we would be. If it was not for the flesh,
we would be perfectly without sin. And if it was not for the
spirit of God, we'd be perfectly given over to the passions of
our flesh. Paul said, I have fought the
good fight. The fight is fought in Gaza.
and the victory is won by the Lord Jesus Christ in Gaza. There's
our hope. What he accomplished eternally
for the forgiveness of our sins on Calvary's cross, he continues
to accomplish in our lives so that If by his death, we were
enemies or reconciled to God, how much more shall we be saved
by his life? By his life. Our salvation. Eternally by his death. Temporally
in this world by his life. His life in us. Though we walk
in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. This conflict that
we have with our flesh and with all the spiritual enemies of
God is not a fleshly conflict. We don't pull ourselves up by
our bootstraps. We don't grit our teeth. We don't
recommit our lives and say, well, we're going to do better and
we're going to get better. And no, we don't. The weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds and bringing into captivity every
thought and imagination of the heart. To the obedience of Christ. To the obedience of Christ. It
is the obedience of Christ that got the victory on Calvary's
cross. And it is the obedience of Christ that will bring down
the gates of Gaza and bring us back to Hebron. That's the story
here. Look at, let's read these first
three verses together. Judges chapter 16, verse one,
then went Samson to Gaza and saw there a harlot and went in
under her. And it was told the Gazites,
Samson has come hither, and they compassed him in and laid wait
for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all
the night, saying, in the morning, when it is day, we shall kill
him. And Samson lay till midnight, and rose at midnight, and took
the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and
went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders,
and carried them up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron."
We've been studying the life of Samson for a few weeks now,
and we see him as a type of Christ. He is our strong man. The scripture
says, the Lord Jesus Christ said in Luke chapter 11, he said,
when a strong man armed. Now this, this is what the Lord
said right after the Pharisees accused him of casting devils
out by Beelzebub. They said, well, you're just
of the devil. You're casting devils out by the devil. The
Lord said, if a house be divided against itself, it cannot stand.
And then he said this in Luke chapter 11. He said, when a strong
man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace. There was a time when the strong
man, not the Lord Jesus Christ, but yet another man stronger
than us, had blinded our eyes and had his goods in peace. We were not troubled for our
soul. We were content in going about
our lives, whether it be religious or irreligious. The strong man
held us in bondage and we were at peace. False peace as it was,
we were at peace. And the Lord goes on to say,
and when a stronger than he is come upon him and overcome him,
he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and then
he divides his spoil. Now that's the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is our Samson, stronger than the devil, who comes and delivers
us. from darkness into his marvelous
light. That's what we have a picture
of here. That's what Samson represents
in the scriptures. Now, before we look any further
into this type, this picture of Christ bringing his children
out of Gaza and delivering them from that place of conflict,
I think it would be important for us to acknowledge the fact
that the Scriptures do not hesitate to expose the sins of God's people. This is a shameful act that Samson... Samson's a judge. Samson knows
God. He goes down to Gaza. Scripture
says he finds a harlot and goes in with her. It's amazing how oftentimes we
read of even God's choicest servants committing heinous sins, doing
things that are shameful. And the Lord doesn't gloss over
that. He doesn't try to hide it. We
look at Abraham and how he forsook Sarah among Pharaoh and denied
her to even be his wife and allowed his wife to be taken into the
harem of Pharaoh and only God stopped that. Well, look at Lot
and his drunken incestuous relationship with his daughters and over and
over David and these are Peter denying the Lord? Why do you suppose it is that
the writings of men, whether it be Muhammad in the Quran or
Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormons, or even, Angus and I were talking
about this the other night, how we don't like reading biographies,
even if they be of good men. because they're presented in
such a way that you think, well, I could never be that way. They
hide the failures of these men and present them as heroes only. And you come out feeling like,
well, you know, there's just no way I could measure up to
that. The reason why the Spirit of God doesn't hesitate to hide
the sins of God's heroes in scriptures is the same reason why the Bible
is written. To show the difference between
law and grace. When men write, they hide these
things because they have a works mentality for salvation. When
God writes his word, he shows us that if salvation is not by
free sovereign grace, no one would be saved. No one would
be saved. It's like when we opened up the
service, we have to come before God as a sinner. This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. He only saves sinners and he
saves every sinner. And the Lord doesn't hesitate
to show us the failures of godly men and women that we might realize,
you know what? Maybe the Lord will have mercy
on me too. Maybe he'll show grace toward me. You see, our response
to salvation is completely different when we read God's word than
we read the words of men. We come to the conclusion that
we can do nothing to gain our salvation. And the flip side
to that coin is that we can do nothing to lose it. That good
news? Salvations of the Lord. And it's
for fallen, broken, rebellious, disobedient children, sinners. Lord, if I'm going to be saved,
you're going to have to do it all. And if I'm going to be kept from
such shame in my life, you're going to have to work in me,
causing me to will and to do after your good pleasure. Lord,
you're going to have to restrain my flesh You're going to have to come
to Gaza. That's stronghold. And you have
to tear down the gates. And you have to bring me out. Those that are under the law
will present men in a favorable light to try to motivate us to
live godly lives, but in fact it has just the opposite effect. The strength of sin is the law. The only restraint to our flesh,
the only restraint to sin is forgiveness and grace. That's the restraint. You're not under the law. You're
under grace. Therefore, sin shall not have
dominion over you. It's only in grace that sin is
restrained, being forgiven. So we're not going to excuse
the behavior of Samson. It's shameful. But the Lord's showing you and
I how it is that he's pleased to save sinners, and that there's
nothing you can do to earn your salvation, and there's nothing
you can do to lose your salvation. That being said, this is a gospel
story. It is a picture of Christ and
his salvation for his church. And Just like leprosy in the
Bible pictures the corruption of sin, and blindness pictures
the darkness of sin, harlotry and whoremongering in the Bible
pictures the unfaithfulness of sin. And how there is some of
that in every one of us. And so when The Bible says that
Samson went down to that stronghold called Gaza and he saw a harlot. What a picture that is. What is the first of the 10 commandments? The first of the 10 commandments,
thou shalt have no other gods before me. How many times in our draw to
Egypt do we find ourselves in Gaza looking away from Christ
and trying to find our satisfaction and our hope somewhere other
than Him? And God says, thou shalt not
have other gods before me. Is that not spiritual harlotry?
Sure it is. Sure it is. We are spiritually
unfaithful to our God. Isaiah put it like this in Isaiah
chapter 54, thy maker is thy husband. And how many times we
look away from our husband and try to find contentment somewhere
else outside of him. How prone we are to wonder, how
prone we are to leave the God that we love, how easily it is
for us to be brought astray from from his mercy and his beauty
and his satisfaction and his glory. Here's our strong man,
the Lord Jesus Christ coming down to Gaza. He won't let us
go to Egypt, but oftentimes we find ourselves stuck in this
middle ground between Israel and Egypt. And the Lord comes
down and he sees a harlot. How many times harlotry is used
in the Bible? Oh, you think about Hosea and
Gomer. Hosea, a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and Gomer, his wife. The Lord said to Hosea, take
unto thee a woman of harlotry. And he went and got Gomer and
married her, and she went back to harlotry. That's where we are. Gomer, Hosea
finally bought her off the auction block, and brought her home and
made her his own. This is what this is a picture
of. The Lord sees harlots. Here's the difference between
if God has not made you to be a sinner, someone thinking right
now, well, I'm not a harlot. That's not my life. God's people are saying, Every day I find myself playing
the harlot. And notice in our text that the Lord
saw, he saw her. She didn't see him, Samson saw
her. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter
16, Ezekiel 16. Aren't you glad that the Lord
doesn't wait for you to come to him? Here's what God says, no man
seeketh after God at any time. If the Lord didn't see us in
Gaza, if he didn't see us as a harlot, if he didn't come into
us and deliver us, we would never come to him. we'd remain right
there. If the Lord hadn't called out
Adam, Adam would still be hiding in the garden. If he hadn't, if Noah had not
found grace in the eyes of the Lord, Noah would have drowned
with everyone else. You see, God has to pursue us,
doesn't he? He has to see us. If the Lord
had not gone to the Ur of the Chaldees and chosen Abram out,
Abram would still be worshiping false gods with his pagan relatives. If the Lord had not chosen Matthew,
Matthew would still be sitting at his money table. If he hadn't
knocked Saul of Tarsus off his high horse on the road to Damascus,
Saul would still be breathing out threatenings against God. Even in hell, he'd be shaking
his fist toward heaven. God has to pursue us. We don't
pursue him. Samson went down into Gaza and
saw a harlot and went into her. Ezekiel chapter 16, again, the
word of the Lord came unto me saying, verse one, son of man,
cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. That's what I'm trying to do
right now. I'm just a voice of one crying in the wilderness,
but I'm praying that the Lord will take these glorious truths
and apply them to our hearts and cause us to see our abomination. Lord, I'm a harlot. I find myself in Gaza all the
time, and I'm drawn to Egypt, and Lord, you're gonna have to
send the strong man to beat this other strong man, or he'll have
dominion over me. He will have dominion over me.
And Lord, if you are able to save by your shed blood, when
I was at enmity with thee, then your life is gonna have to continue
to save me. Look at verse three. And say
unto her, thus saith the Lord God of Jerusalem, thy birth and
thy nativity is of the land of Canaan, paganism, thy father,
an Amorite, thy mother, a Hittite. We're born as pagans from pagans,
sinners from sinners. And as for thy nativity and the
day that thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither was
thou washed in water to supple thee, thou wast not salted at
all, nor swaddled at all, none I pitied thee to do to do any of these things unto
thee, to have compassion upon thee. But thou wast cast out
into the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that
thou wast born." Now God's giving us a picture of our physical
birth. a baby that is so grossly deformed
that the parents don't even have any hope for its survival or
any way to care for it. And so they just, before they
even clean it up, they just cast it out into the field. What a
horrible picture, but that's exactly what God is saying. That's
how God says, you and I come into this world. Nobody wanted
you. Nobody had any mercy. That's how, that's how how hopeless
you were and continue to be until, verse six, when I passed by thee
and I saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee,
when thou wast in thy blood, live, yea, I said unto thee,
when thou wast in thy blood, live. The Lord doesn't see us
and have compassion on us. We'll never come to him. This is the picture of the gospel
in Judges chapter 16. Our strong man comes down to
a stronghold called Gaza, where we're struggling, struggling
in our flesh. And he's come to save us again,
and again, and again, and again, every day. We need to be saved,
don't we? Go back with me to our text. Notice when Samson, verse one,
went to Gaza and saw there a harlot and went in under her. What a
glorious picture. Now the Lord uses the act of
physical conception to picture spiritual birth, the new birth. When he told Nicodemus, Nicodemus,
you've got to be born again. And Nicodemus knew that he was
talking about being born like he was the first. So he said,
how can I go back into my mother's womb and be born again? The Lord
said, oh no, Nicodemus, that's just a picture. It's a picture. Just as the Lord
Jesus Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit, so we have to
be conceived of the Holy Spirit. Just as we have nothing to do
with our physical conception, or even with our physical birth.
Now, I've made this point before. You know, when a baby's born,
we sometimes kind of tongue-in-cheek say, well, you know, that baby
was ready to come out. No, it wasn't. That baby would stay
there as long as it can stay. It's the mother's body that can't
handle the size of that baby anymore. It's the mother's body
that pushes that baby out and rejects that child. And so it
is. The baby didn't say, well, I'm
ready to be born. No. Salvation's of the Lord. And
this matter of physical birth is a picture of our spiritual
birth. So many other things that we
could talk about that liken unto that. But, um, Paul said in Galatians
chapter four, verse 19, my little children of whom I travail in
birth again until Christ be formed in you. So this spiritual new
birth is also a picture of Christ being in us, the hope of our
glory. Samson went down to Gaza. That
stronghold was harlots. He saw one particular harlot
and he went into her. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am in my father and you in me and I in you. It's another picture of our salvation. When a woman is pregnant with
a child, everywhere she goes, he goes. That child goes with
her. And so it is when we are found
in him. Everything that he did, we did.
When he died, we died. When he lived, we lived. When
he was raised from the dead, we were raised from the dead.
When he ascended into glory, we ascended into glory. To be
found in him, not having our own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that righteousness, which is by the faith of the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is a picture of our salvation.
See, the Lord continues to save his people. Notice in verse two of our text
that the people of Gaza, the Gazites, said they saw that Samson was
there and they come passed him in and they laid wait for him
and they said we'll kill him in the morning. While they schemed
in the dark to kill him, he knew their plans and he not only thwarted
their plans, but he took away all their protection. The gates
of a city are the protection of a city and what do we see
Samson doing here? He's doing what the Lord said
he would do. When Peter said, thou art the
Christ, the son of the living God. And the Lord Jesus Christ
said to Peter, he said, blessed art thou Simon Barjona, flesh
and blood has not given this unto you, not revealed this unto
you, but my father, which is in heaven. And upon this rock,
this declaration that I am the Christ, the son of the living
God, I'm gonna build my church and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. We see Samson taking not just
the gates, but the post that the gates are hung on and carrying
them all the way to Hebron, back to Israel, 50 miles. You know, I read this story for
so long and I thought, well, he just took them up on the hill
and showed the people of Gaza. No, he took them to Hebron, 50
miles away, a city of refuge. That's what Hebron was. We know
the significance of that. avenger of blood, the law, could
not pursue the manslayer who found safety in the city of refuge. Hebron was the city of refuge
for the tribe of Judah. Hebron was also the place where
Abraham first built an altar to God when he came into the
promised land. Hebron is a significant place all throughout the Old
Testament. But here's the significance of it. It's a picture of our
union with Christ. So the Lord takes these gates
and he carries them all the way to Hebron, delivers us from the
city of Gaza. Also a picture of the rolling
away of the stone at his tomb. when the stone was rolled away
and the Lord Jesus Christ came out alive. Oh, death, where's
thy sting? Oh, grave, where's thy victory?
The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the law, but
thanks be to God, we have the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Let me ask you a question, child
of God, You find yourself being drawn to Egypt every day. Do
you see the spiritual harlotry that remains in your flesh and
in your heart? Do you find yourself in the land
of Gaza, right between Israel and Egypt? Do you need a strong
man to come and deliver you, bring you back to Hebron? tear
down the gates that hold you in, deliver you by his grace,
by his mercy. What a, what a glorious picture. They plotted against the Lord
Jesus Christ to kill him. And he used their very schemes
to defeat them, to defeat his enemy and to save his people. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for your word, and we ask, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would
apply it effectually to our hearts and cause us, Lord, to rest in
and rejoice in the saving work of thy dear Son. For it's in
his name we pray. Amen.